Sunday, 25 September 2011

A refreshed ride poster for Maymorn is now available (and will likely be included in your next emailed newsletter, due soon).

Some of you may notice that we've reviewed and revised the distances for this event. This followed from preparation of a trail profile, based on GPS data of the Novice course which has consistently shown the course shorter than advertised over several years.

The extended Open course options have yet to be measured by GPS (we hope to do that this year) and have been created within Google Earth and checked against other mapping products. Again, we've concluded that the longer courses have been consistently shorter than previously advertised, and this has been born out by some of our more experienced riders who've found they had to travel much more slowly than expected in the latter stages of the return journey.

Also just available today is the poster for the Foxton ride at the end of October. If reviewing the trail profile for this venue, keep in mind that the course on our farm venues may vary from year to year, so the trail used this year may not be the same as last year's, although we expect it will use some of the same sections. At venues such as Foxton, variations from year to year depend on where stock and crops are situated, whereas trails in public parks (such as Maymorn) have limited options and tend to follow the same course each year. In other words, the trail profiles should be used as a guide to the venue and terrain, not a map of the course.

Anyway, we hope everyone's preparations for the competition season are well underway and going to plan, and we look forward to seeing al our regulars and a bunch of new faces at Maymorn on the 16th, just 3 weeks from now.